Monday, November 1, 2010

The Everyday Housewife: Murder, Drugs, and Ironing

What do you do when you are a thirty-eight-year-old housewife, from Oklahoma, with a husband who can't keep his hands off another woman, a daughter who can't keep her hands off of food, and a teenage son who publically can't keep his hands off himself? Well, you can put up with it and pretend like it isn't happening, or you can hop on a bus to New York City and explore your aspirations to be a published author.

In "The Everyday Housewife," that is exactly what Katharine Beaumont did, only things turned out to be a lot different then she expected. First of all, she discovers that you can't just show up at a literary agent's office with a handwritten story in a notebook. Secondly, she learns about how high rent is in New York City, even if the apartment comes complete with unruly spiders and cockroaches. She also discovers why some apartments come furnished. I don't want to give that one away, but it was an eye opener!

Katharine also learns about the fine art of waitressing, when she finds that she has to get a job to pay the rent. Books don't get published as quickly as she expects. She also gains some interesting new friends. One is a sensitive hitman/bartender and the other is a crackhead neighbor who is always fighting with her pimp lover. Yes, for Katharine things are very different in New York City versus the suburbs of Oklahoma.

Katharine also graciously shares the novel that she is working on with us. Truly a bodice ripping tale, it is like none that I have ever read before. Actually, "The Everyday Housewife" is also like no fictional novel that I have ever read before. I think that the author, Bryan Foreman, threw out all the standard rules on how to write fiction. As a result of this, "The Everyday Housewife," is one of the most unexpectedly entertaining novels that I have had the pleasure of reading. In this story, and the story within the story, nothing is as it should be, and I found myself totally unable to guess what was going to happen next. What a refreshing change from the usual fictional formats!

I highly recommend "The Everyday Housewife" to readers who are feeling the need to "get away from it all!" It might make you think twice about doing so, or at least distract you enough to forget that you have the need to go.